Love Stories of Enchanting Ladies: A Historical Regency Romance Collection

by Bridget Barton

  A sound in the hall announced the man from the desk. “Letter for Miss Evans.” Charlotte gestured with her head to the door. Olivia stood and went to answer. The man handed her the letter and was gone back to his post in a heartbeat.”

  Olivia turned the letter over in her hand.

  “Give me that.” Charlotte snatched it away.

  “No seal, hmm. His Grace doesn’t want anyone to know he is consulting with someone staying in Covent Garden,” she snorted. “Let us see.” She began to read.

  Olivia watched as Charlotte nodded and began to smile the more she read. “Very good. Very good, indeed. Almost better than I expected.” She looked over the page at Olivia, “He’s having the papers of paternity and primogeniture written up at this very moment. It’s almost unfortunate to have to kill the Duchess, but you knew this was going to be a dangerous job, Olivia.” Charlotte threw her head back and laughed as if she’d just heard the finest joke.

  “By the way, you might as well take her some more of that bread ... no cheese this time. We’re not made of money. Not yet! She stays alive until I see those papers signed by the Duke.” Again she spewed forth an evil laugh.

  “Yes, Charlotte.” Olivia kept her head down. She collected the bread and put it in her apron. The plate was already in the cellar. Without a word, she left the room. Her head was spinning.

  She had to pass the desk to get outside. The door to the cellar was on the same side of the building as the passageway to the mews. At the desk she smiled her sweetest ... the man wasn’t there. His son was. The boy was just fifteen. “I’m wondering if I might get an extra blanket for my room and a tankard Mr …”

  “Mr Smothers, My Lady.” The boy puffed out his chest. “Yes, you may rent another blanket. Would you like me to put it on the bill?” He pulled an ale and handed the mug to her.

  “I … I was wondering if … well if I might not have to rent the blanket but only borrow it.” She batted her eyes at Mr Smothers.

  “Why, of course, Miss.”

  “Miss Evans.” Olivia would begin now to make her own escape from Charlotte. But first she would see to Phoebe. She smiled again at the boy, Smothers, and stepped back from the desk. As soon as his back was turned, she was out the door and around the side of the building.

  She looked both ways and scanned the mews. No one was about. She pushed with her shoulder, and the door gave in to her weight. The bit of candle she had did little to light her way, but once she was at the back of the cellar, she retrieved the key to Phoebe’s prison.

  The door squeaked open. Phoebe was right inside the ugly portal, her back pressed against the cold wet wall, her arms wrapped around her knees. Olivia crouched down.

  Phoebe’s bright blue eyes emerged from the darkness of the room. Under the boarded up window, the rat and a few of his cronies fought over the last bit of bread from her dinner.

  Olivia spoke to Phoebe in a whisper, “Your Grace. Here is a blanket. I will bring clothing to you, and once it’s dark, you must come with me.”

  “I will go nowhere with you until you tell me why I am being kept here in this … this dungeon.”

  “Please Your Grace. You must listen to me. Charlotte means to have me kill you. If I don’t, she will kill me and then come for you. I mean to get you out of here. I can tell you later what this has been about. But, please, be waiting for me when eight o’clock chimes from the church bells.”

  “I will do nothing of the sort. Get Charlotte now. I should like to speak with her.”

  “Your Grace. Please. You must listen to me, or we are both as good as dead. I speak the truth, Your Grace. You must believe me. You must trust me.”

  “Very well. What should I do?”

  “Nothing until the church bells. Charlotte will not come down here; she is terrified of rats. I daresay they’re the only thing she’s afraid of. Now, I must go. Be ready, Your Grace.” She shut the door but didn’t lock it this time.

  Phoebe could get out now. She could escape. But Olivia had said that Charlotte would kill them both. She wouldn’t leave the girl regardless of the fact that Olivia was implicated. She wrapped the blanket around herself and sipped some of the ale the girl had given her. She figured she should take it all or risk the rats getting to it as they had her bread.

  Chapter 18

  “She’s an evil, vile person.” The real Lady Judith sat on the sofa, next to Mary, drinking some sherry to calm her nerves.

  “But you are alive. That’s what’s important. Charlotte, after she’d been discovered, said you’d died of illness in Seville.” Atwater stood by the fire, gazing into it and trying to get his emotional bearings.

  “It’s true I was ill when we were there. It’s when Charlotte impersonated me for the first time. The next morning, after the ball she’d attended in my place, she took me to a house. I was still very ill, mind you. It turned out it was the house of the landlord of the hotel we’d stayed in. She didn’t want to pay for the rooms, once she’d devised her plan. She left me in lieu of room payment with the landlord and his wife.”

  “How long did they keep you?” Mary was wide-eyed. “This story sounds as fantastic as any that might be in one of our ladies’ magazines. You poor darling.”

  “I was rescued six months ago by the man who is now my husband, Jorge. We have been unable to come to London until now ... I didn’t know what had happened to me. Because of the shock I’d endured over the death of my mother, and my subsequent abuse at the hands of the landlord and his wife, I’d blocked my memory.

  Jorge was a friend of the neighbours of the landlord. The neighbours had seen me and the way I was being treated. They feared something untoward and confided in Jorge.

  Jorge befriended Senor Martinez and his wife. Eventually, he rescued me. But I can tell you the details another time. We must make a plan to find and rescue your Phoebe, Robert. Do you mind to send your boy around to Mivart’s in Mayfair? Jorge will come and help you with anything you might need in procuring your wife’s freedom.”

  Atwater checked his watch. It was six o’clock. Phoebe had been missing since sometime between nine thirty and one thirty, probably closer to nine thirty as it had been clear she’d been taken straight from the bathtub. “Yes. We’ll get a message to your husband. Tom, I’d like you to take me to the wilderness path outside the forgotten door.”

  He rang one of the bells, and Mrs Crabtree, her eyes red from crying, appeared. “Mrs Crabtree.” Atwater hugged the kindly lady. “Please stay here with Lady Mary and Lady Judith. Ask Cook to prepare a little something for them for early supper. And you must eat something as well. Do I make myself clear? I need you to stay strong, Mrs Crabtree.”

  The elderly lady curtsied and hurried from the room, unable to speak through her tears, to say “Very good, Your Grace.”

  *******

  Jorge arrived before the men went out to the bridle path. He knew from Atwater’s note what was happening. He said nothing, merely kissed his wife, kissed Mary’s hand, bowed to Atwater, and shook Tom’s hand.

  The men had decided to forego the carriage, and Dan saddled three of Atwater’s newest thoroughbreds for the men to ride instead. Jorge’s horse would be tended to and stabled in the mews.

  They went through the thicket and along the unused bridle path. Where the thicket and the path met, it was clear that a carriage of some sort had been there. And definitely on that very day. The tracks were fresh.

  “What’s next, Robert?” Tom’s voice was anxious. “May I see the ransom letter?”

  Atwater absentmindedly reached into his vest and withdrew the paper. He handed it to Robert.

  Robert began to read until they heard someone calling. The three men looked up as a young woman ran down the passageway from the front of the house and waved to them from the other side of the thicket. It was not lost on the men that Olivia found her way through the little thicket as if she’d done it before.

  “Your Grace. Wait. Oh thank the Good Lord in Heaven.” She caught up to
them.

  “Olivia?” Atwater didn’t know if it was good or bad news that she should show up here at this time.

  “Yes, Your Grace.” The girl curtsied.

  “You have quite the nerve, girl, to show up here after what you’ve done.”

  “Your Grace, there’s no time for me to apologize for that now, although I recognize the error of my ways. Right now, we need to save Her Grace. I didn’t know the full details of Charlotte’s plan. She told me if I didn’t kill Her Grace, then I would be killed. I daresay she’s planned to kill me all along. I’ve never seen …”

  “Where is she? Is she at the Charing Cross Inn?”

  “She is, Your Grace. I was in the room when your note to Charlotte arrived. She means to have me kill Her Grace. Her Grace is alive because Charlotte is waiting for the promised documents confirming parentage and primogeniture.”

  Atwater and Tom exchanged looks.

  “Quickly, please. You must follow me. I’ve drugged Charlotte. We must summon the authorities. And we must save the baby also.”

  “She’s keeping the child in that wretched place?”

  “Yes, Your Grace.”

  “Hurry then. Tom, Jorge, let us go.” He reached down and pulled Olivia up behind him. “Best get to explaining, girl.”

  *******

  As soon as they left the mews, Atwater sent Terence to get Colonel Drake. “Give him the details, Terence, and ask him to bring a couple of soldiers.”

  Terence bowed his head, “Yes, Your Grace,” and he was off.

  The party now consisting of Olivia, Atwater, Tom, and Jorge, headed to Covent Garden.

  “Tell me, Olivia, who is the child’s actual father?” Atwater questioned the girl as gently as he could. While he wanted her arrested for her treachery, he was grateful that she’d realized she was in with Charlotte too deep. Olivia was an impressionable girl. Charlotte was a cold blooded criminal.

  “His name is, er was, Jacob, Your Grace. He stopped coming around to see the baby. He’d asked Charlotte to marry him. It was most peculiar. After he proposed, he never stopped by to visit again. She has a new mister now.”

  “Do you think she killed Jacob?” Tom asked the girl.

  “I do, My Lord. Just as she will dispose of me when she’s through with me. She meant to use me to kill Her Grace. I realized then that as soon as something like that were to transpire, Charlotte would no longer have need of me.”

  “I fear you are right. It was foolish of you to trust her in the first place.”

  “At least I will not die because of my foolishness. I will go to prison, but I will not die. I thought Charlotte could help me to rise up out of servitude. Like Lady Mary, My Lord.”

  “Ah. I see.”

  Atwater spoke. “We’re getting closer now, Olivia. Which way?”

  The church bells began to call the time. The first chime of nine o’clock rang out over the city.

  “Go the back way, Your Grace. Through the mews. There is a cellar door on the side of the building.”

  “Her Grace is being held in a cellar?”

  “Yes, Your Grace.” Olivia didn’t have to go into detail about the state of the cellar. Most knew that the cellars of London were no better than primitive dungeons. They were the haven of rats and every manner of damp and cold.

  Atwater said nothing, only shaking his head.

  *******

  Phoebe had put on the clothes Olivia had left with her. She knew her face must be dirty. There was a cut over her left eye. She sat back against the blanket she’d wedged between her back and the wall.

  She thought Charlotte must be mad to think she could get away with such an evil plan. Her eyes began to grow heavy.

  In the near pitch blackness of the cellar, something scurried by her, and she heard the rats fight over the piece of bread she’d thrown in the corner to keep the vermin away from her.

  Would no one ever come? Maybe Charlotte meant to leave her here to starve to death. If Charlotte killed Olivia, then there would be no one to save Phoebe. Maybe she would just languish here, starved to death, her dead body becoming rat fodder.

  No. She refused to think that way. She knew Atwater would find her. He must. He simply had to. A slow tear made its course from her eye to her chin. She sniffed and rested her forehead on her bent knees. The first toll of the nine o’clock bell shattered the night air.

  The chime was followed by another, the sound ringing out and echoing over the cobbled streets. As soon as the sound died out completely, the next bell took up.

  On the fourth bell, Phoebe heard sounds outside the cellar room. Olivia. Phoebe breathed a sigh of relief then stood, taking a minute to get her bearings.

  She shook her legs to relieve them of the stiffness from sitting and sleeping in the cold, damp chamber. How long had she been here?

  The door opened a crack.

  “Olivia?”

  Chapter 19

  “So, it’s my guess you didn’t expect me, huh, Your Grace, did you?” Charlotte entered the cellar room illuminated by a lantern and followed by Bruce, the thug she’d recruited to do the heavy work.

  “It looks like Olivia has gone and abandoned you, Your Grace.”

  Phoebe’s eyes blinked against the light. She stood back against the wall, her arms hugging her torso. “You’ve killed her, haven’t you? You evil wench.”

  Charlotte’s dusky chuckle filled the room. “Well, aren’t you the sassy one? Bruce, do you see what a lively, sassy minx our little Duchess is. I daresay she won’t be so in a short while.”

  The man smiled in reply, his broken teeth rotten, the clump of snuff in his jaw distorting his face.

  “So, you’re going to kill me as well? I should have expected as much from one such as you.” Phoebe’s eyes were narrowed in rage. She had no fear. She knew she was to die, so she spoke as freely as she wanted. Caution is lost when one has no hope.

  “Oh, but you underestimate me, Your Grace. Why would I kill you? You know I am a businesswoman. Bruce, how much will your man down at the riverfront give me?”

  “For a real live Duchess, My Lady? You’re looking at some good money. He’ll give you gold for this one, he will. Of course he’ll have to take her out of the country. But a real Duchess, why if I didn’t love you like I do, I might like to try her meself.” The man’s eyes roamed up and down looking Phoebe over as he ran his tongue along his lower lip.

  Charlotte slapped the man’s face. Phoebe gasped. “That will be enough, Bruce. You’ll do fine to remember who’s been keeping you out of jail and in the pub.”

  The man looked down. “Yes, My Lady.”

  “Well, we might as well get her out of here. Come on you, or I mean, Your Grace.” Charlotte’s hand squeezed around Phoebe’s arm.

  “I will not.”

  “You’ll do as I say. You have no rank here, Phoebe.” Charlotte pulled her arm, and Phoebe wrenched it free.

  “Bruce.”

  Without another word being said, Bruce walked over to Phoebe and punched her in the face rendering her unconscious. He picked her up and hoisted her over his shoulder. Charlotte tucked the blanket around Phoebe’s limp body then led the way out of the cellar.

  *******

  The hotel manager’s boy, Smothers, was returning to the Charing Cross Inn after running some errands for his father. One of the recipients of a note had tipped him a whole shilling, which he’d nearly immediately spent at the pub.